Aberdeenshire Council’s housing department has underspent its budget for building and repairing council homes by £7.5million despite having a waiting list of 10,000 applicants.
The figures were revealed in a new report from the infrastructure director which will be presented to the social work and housing committee today.
A “significant” slice of the money is in the local authority’s coffers as a result of the collapse of Muirfield Contracts, the firm which was responsible for flagship housing developments in Fraserburgh and Inverurie.
However, opposition councillors have urged the administration to keep the delivery of affordable and socially rented homes a priority in the next financial year.
In his report on the department’s capital programme to the committee, infrastructure chief Stephen Archer said: “The council was advised that Muirfield Contracts went into administration on March 10, 2015.
“All contracts requiring works to be completed have been re-tendered. At the time of writing this report, all eight contracts have been appointed, four have been completed and the remaining four contracts will be completed by June 30, 2016.”
In total, £7,473,000 of the housing department’s proposed £33million capital programme has not been spent.
Of that figure, £1.2million, which should have been used to build new homes, remains in the pot, and £6.5million was earmarked for repairs and upgrades to existing homes.
Many of the improvements – which included replacement kitchens, windows, doors and heating – were due to be completed by Muirfield.
Committee chairwoman Anne Allan described last year’s performance as a “blip”, and said the administration was still committed to building new homes.
The SNP councillor added: “It was an unfortunate year with Muirfield going bust, because not only were they doing new builds, they were also doing some upgrades.
“Next year, we must have an extra large programme to catch up with the work. These were all things that could not be avoided.”
Last night, opposition councillor Anne Robertson, former chairwoman of housing committee, responded that the administration must ensure housing remains a priority going forwards.
The Liberal Democrat member said: “Some of the underspends are due to the fact the contractor went into administration.
“So that has caused a significant delay in the programme. That will continue to cause quite a lot of the delays.”
Mrs Robertson added that, on budget day earlier this year, there was a consensus in the chamber money must be spent on affordable housing.
She said: “The alliance position on budget day was that we would have £5million reserve aside for affordable housing, £2million of which would be reserved for social rented housing.
“The Partnership budget which won the day had a £4million reserve just for affordable housing.”
